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TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 

THE PHILIPPINES —THE ORIENTAL PROBLEM 

By N. P. CHIPMAN 

n 

A COMMISSIONER OF THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA 
[From the Overland Monthly, December, 1899] 





T HE recent war with Spain has cast 
upon us duties and responsibilities 
greater than those which came after 
the Civil War, and in many respects not 
less important than devolved upon the 
founders of the. Republic at the close of 
the Revolution. These duties and re¬ 
sponsibilities must be met and discharged 
by the aid of an enlightened public opin¬ 
ion, in the formation of which it is the 
duty of every good citizen to contribute 
with unselfish patriotism and sincere love 
for the truth, as he may see the truth. 
The merits of the argument cannot be ulti¬ 
mately obscured by calling hard names or 
by confounding terms. We may have ter¬ 
ritorial expansion under new and hitherto 
untried conditions with no semblance to or 
danger from what the anti-expansionist 
understands by the terms “ imperialism ” 
and “ militarism.” But all sides must 
be given a hearing, and equal sincerity and 
patriotism must be accorded to the dispu¬ 
tants. 

If the United States experienced a new 
birth of freedom in 1865, it leaped into 
conscious manhood in 1898, and quickly 
threw off its panoply of isolation and se¬ 
clusion. We boldly, though without pre¬ 
meditation, stepped forth into the world’s 
great arena face to face with all the powers 
of the earth, demanding our rightful place 
in the confederation of nations. The pol¬ 
icy of territorial expansion has itself been 
expanded and given a new interpretation 
an d a broader application than in any for¬ 
mer period of our history. It is in the 
light of the new conditions surrounding 
us that we should enter upon the discus¬ 
sion of the subject; for in its right solu¬ 
tion are involved interests of transcendent 
importance to our country. In fact, as 
President McKinley recently stated the 
case, it is no longer a question of expan¬ 
sion ; we have expanded. The question is, 
Shall we contract ? 

The cautious and paternal admonitions 


of George Washington, which are among 
our most precious possessions, were spoken 
at a time and under conditions so different 
from those existing now that they are to 
our national life as inadequate as was the 
old dispensation to the followers of Christ 
at the coming in of the Christian era. 
Wise, conservative, even statesmanlike 
then, they furnish no guide for the teem¬ 
ing, restless, ambitious millions who now 
inhabit a vast continent of whose geogra¬ 
phy, much less of whose future capabilities 
and resources, he had not even dreamed. 
Changes as profound as have taken place 
here have also been going on since the Rev¬ 
olution in all other countries of the globe; 
and this fact must not be lost sight of in 
the discussion. Between us and them 
have arisen relations, the result of our phe¬ 
nomenal growth, which omniscience alone 
could fathom, and which were a sealed 
book to the Father of his Country. 

The weakest of nations, then struggling 
for national life, with our form of govern¬ 
ment still in the crucible, our hope rested 
in being left alone to mold into form the 
discordant elements of our confederacy 
and lay the foundations of permanent gov¬ 
ernment and an indissoluble Union. 
Washington looked not beyond this. His 
great soul found peace in the thought that 
his countrymen would be permitted to 
build up a nation isolated and apart from 
the jealousies, caprices, and intrigues of 
European countries. His dream of em¬ 
pire found its western limit at the Missis¬ 
sippi River; and, strangely, he saw no 
menace in the fact that we were sur¬ 
rounded on the north, west, and south by 
contiguous territory acknowledging, re¬ 
spectively, the sovereignty of three of the 
leading European powers. 

The dream of Washington was Utopian. 
The isolated Union he erected in his patri¬ 
otic imagination and recommended to his 
countrymen, when one of the weakest na¬ 
tions, was not the Union which has now 


2 


Territorial Expansion ' 


become the richest and most powerful na¬ 
tion on the earth. Let us take a brief his¬ 
torical retrospect. 

By the treaty of 1783 our western 
boundary was extended to the Mississippi 
River; and of the entire continents of 
North and South America we laid claim 
only to a little over five per cent. The 
account then stood (omitting fractions), 
Spain, forty-five per cent.; Great Britain 
twenty-four per cent.; Portugal, twenty 
per cent.; Russia, three per cent.; France, 
one per cent. 

The five per cent., or 800,000 square 
miles claimed, but not all occupied, by the 
United States in the year 1800, has ex¬ 
panded to about 24 per cent, of the area of 
all the Americas (excluding our recent ac¬ 
quisitions), or 3,602,990 square miles, 
while largely through the permeating 
moral influence of free government in the 
United States, republics have displaced 
the tyranny of Spain and Portugal in 
Central and South America, and to-day, 
with the exception of less than five per 
cent., the Americas have passed under 
the sway of republican institutions, and 
monarchism and despotism have been for¬ 
ever extirpated. 

Go back with me a moment. George 
Washington died on December 14, 1799. 
The habiliments of mourning were 
scarcely laid aside when the statesmen of 
that period addressed themselves most 
seriously to the problem of territorial ex¬ 
pansion. In 1803, four years after the 
death of Washington, Jefferson con¬ 
summated the Louisiana purchase, more 
than doubling our then domain. Monroe 
negotiated a treaty with Spain in 1819 by 
which we acquired the whole of Florida. 
In the administration of President Polk 
we received Texas into the Union, and by 
the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo we ac¬ 
quired what is now New Mexico, Arizona, 
and California. The Gadsden purchase 
came in 1853, during the administration 
of President Pierce, and in 1867 we pur¬ 
chased Alaska. 

Let us go back again, and take up an¬ 
other thread in our history, which has the 
deepest significance and is a necessary 
part of that policy which leads inevitably 
to our active interposition in aiding to di¬ 
rect the destinies of the Orient. The 
league known as the Holy Alliance was 


concluded in 1815. Its declared purpose 
was not so far-reaching as its real objects 
proved to be; for it finally arrogated to it¬ 
self the right to put an end to the system 
of representative governments in Europe 
and to destroy the liberty of the press. It 
proposed also to crush out the struggling 
republics of South America, which our 
Government had recognized. It is not. 
commonly so understood, but history as¬ 
sures us that the popular sentiment of 
England led her Premier at that critical 
period, to say to our Government that 
England would stand by us if we should 
resist the attempt of the allies to over¬ 
throw the Spanish-American republics. 
Mr. Monroe was fortunate in having Ex- 
Presidents Madison and Jefferson with 
whom he could advise and John Quincy 
Adams as his Secretary of State. Mr. 
Jefferson said:— 

Our first and fundamental maxim should 
be never to entangle ourselves in the broils 
of Europe; our second, never to suffer Eu¬ 
rope to intermeddle with Cisatlantic affairs. 

. . . While Europe is laboring to become 

the domicile of despotism, our endeavor 
should be to make our hemisphere that of 
freedom. One nation (Great Britain), most 
of all, could disturb us in this pursuit; she 
now offers to lead, aid, and accompany us 
in it. By acceding to her proposition we de¬ 
tach her from the bands, bring her mighty 
weight into the scale of free government, 
and emancipate a continent at a stroke. 

. . . Great Britain is the nation which 

can do us the most harm of any one or all 
on earth, and with her on our side we need 
not fear the world. With her, then, we 
should most sedulously cherish a cordial 
friendship, and nothing would tend more to 
knit our affections than to be fighting once 
more side by side in the same cause. 

On December 2, 1823, President Monroe 
promulgated his memorable message to the 
world. It was the independent action of 
our Government, through no alliance with 
Great Britain. But who shall say that, in 
that youthful period of our nation, we 
would have ventured to defy all Europe 
but for the assurances conveyed to us by 
England? Who shall say if we had not 
already removed Spain from Florida and 
France from the Mississippi River and the 
great Northwest, by the wise policy of ter¬ 
ritorial expansion inaugurated by Jeffer¬ 
son, that we would have had the temerity 
to dispute all right of the powers to inter¬ 
meddle with the affairs of this hemi¬ 
sphere ? 


Territorial Expansion 


3 


When these great events were transpir¬ 
ing there were but twenty-three States of 
the Union represented in the census of 
1800. Ohio had but about 500,000 popu¬ 
lation, Indiana 147,000, and Illinois 
55,000. In all the .States there were but 
9,500,000 people. Michigan, Minnesota, 
Missouri, Iowa,Kansas,and the vast region 
of the Transmississippi were practically 
uninhabited. The far-off Pacific Coast was 
unexplored ar.d unknown. In the year 
1800, the immigration to this country was 
a little over 8,000 and did not reach the 
hundred-thousand mark annually but once 


enlarging the foundations upon which we 
have so marvelously built, the United 
States stands to-day not only strong 
enough, but charged with the solemn duty 
to demand that it be consulted before any 
great change shall be consummated by the 
other powers of the earth in countries with 
which we have peculiar and important 
relations. We are no longer an infant re¬ 
public whose safety lies in isolation. We 
have become a great power, and have 
duties which we owe to a large and ever- 
increasing population, and which cannot 
be discharged by standing passive while 



Text's a h n 


tl/SS. 





Mr-' 

* H * A V 

/* 

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until 1845. Since then the increase has 
been rapid, and reached 790,000 in 1882, 
and as late as 1892 was over 600,000. We 
now number, native-born and adopted cit¬ 
izens, fully 75,000,000 people, the most 
homogeneous, active, energetic, ambitious, 
and self-reliant to be found upon the 
earth. 

We have by force of our own genius and 
enterprise taken first place among nations, 
in commerce, manufactures, and agricul¬ 
ture. Having reached this high plane of 
material development, accompanied as it 
has been everywhere and at all times by 
the public school, the university, a free 
press, and the church, thus deepening and 


the great political and commercial drama 
of the Pacific is being enacted. The 
expulsion of Spain from Cuba and Porto 
Eico and their acquisition, the annexation 
of Hawaii, the possession of the Philip¬ 
pines, the construction and ownership of 
the Nicaragua Canal, are facts accom¬ 
plished or soon to be consummated. These 
momentous events mean that the United 
States must occupy a still larger place in 
the world’s commerce, and exert a still 
wider influence upon the destinies of na¬ 
tions. 

There is no man in public life to-day 
who would venture to question the wisdom 


















4 


Territorial Expansion 


of any of the territorial acquisitions of this 
country prior to those of recent date. And 
yet in no single instance have the advo¬ 
cates of territorial expansion escaped op¬ 
position more or less violent. It may not 
be unprofitable to recall some of the argu¬ 
ments presented in that earlier period. 

When Mr. Jefferson proposed the Louisi¬ 
ana purchase it was assailed as unconstitu¬ 
tional and beyond even the treaty-making 


In the debate in Congress it was said by 
a Representative, “ The vast and unman¬ 
ageable extent which the accession of 
Louisiana will give the United States, the 
consequent dispersion of our population, 
and the destruction of, that balance which 
it is so important to maintain between the 
Eastern and Western States, threatens, at 
no very distant day, the subversion of our 
Union.” Another Representative said that 



power, which not even an ordinary amend¬ 
ment of the Constitution could legalize, 
and could be done only by the consent of 
all the States. It was declared to be in¬ 
consistent with the spirit of republican 
government to so greatly enlarge our do¬ 
main. It was claimed that it could not be 
shown that any individual “ entertained 
the least wish to obtain the province of 
Louisiana ” beyond the mouths of the Mis¬ 
sissippi. 


he feared the effect of our vast empire; he 
feared the effects of the increased value of 
labor, the decrease in the value of lands, 
and the influence of climate upon our citi¬ 
zens who should migrate thither. He 
feared that this Eden of the New World 
would prove the cemetery for the bodies 
of our citizens. A Senator said, “ Admit 
this Western world into the Union, and 
you destroy at once the weight and im¬ 
portance of the Eastern States and compel 


5 


Territorial Expansion 


them to establish a separate, independent 
empire.” Another Senator said, “ As to 
Louisiana,—this new, immense, unbound¬ 
ed world,—if it should ever be incorpo¬ 
rated into the Union, I believe it will be the 
greatest curse that could at present befall 
us.” He spoke of the people who should 
inhabit this region as being remote and 
“ where they will scarcely ever feel the rays 
of the General Government, their affec¬ 
tions will become alienated,—they will 
gradually begin to view us as strangers,— 
they will form other commercial connec¬ 
tions, and our interest will become ex¬ 
tinct.” And finally he said, even admitting 
the acquisition, to be desirable, “ fifteen 
millions of dollars was an enormous sum 
to give.” 

Aside from the objection of annexing 
non-contiguous territory, and perhaps the 
incorporation into our body politic of large 
numbers of alien races, I am unable to per¬ 
ceive in the objections now being urged to 
our recent acquisitions, any that were not 
advanced at the genesis of the expansion 
policy, and which have not been entirely 
overthrown by the history and experience 
of the Republic. Railroads, steam-power 
on the ocean, the submarine cable, and the 
telegraph have wrought such marvelous 
changes in the movements of our citizens 
in all their relations with each other and 
with our Government and among the 
family of nations, that neither the vast¬ 
ness of our empire, the non-contiguity of 
our possessions, nor their remoteness from 
our capital any longer enters into the prob¬ 
lem of National Government. 

A glance at the map of the United 
States will disclose nineteen States and 
five Territories lving west of the Missis¬ 
sippi River, embracing an area of 2,475,230 
square miles, equal to one half of the entire 
continent of North America, an area 
greater than that of all Europe excluding 
Russia. Here will be found nearly fifteen 
millions of happy and prosperous Ameri¬ 
can citizens, most of whom can now reach 
the National Capitol in less time than 
some of the Congressmen from whom I 
have quoted could have journeyed to Wash¬ 
ington. Here is the granary of the United 
States; here are the farms and feeding- 
grounds for cattle and sheep that must 
supply the denser population east of the 
Mississippi with food products; here are 


the inexhaustible deposits of the mineral 
wealth of our country; here are to be the 
homes of many millions yet to find relief 
from the overcrowded East. 

After we had settled the question of 
our northeastern boundary, and our claim 
upon what was called the “ Oregon Coun¬ 
try” was being discussed, Senator Mc¬ 
Duffie of Georgia said in the United 
States Senate, as late as in 1843:— 

What is the nature of this country? Why, 
as I understand it, seven hundred miles this 
side of the Rocky Mountains is uninhabit¬ 
able; a region where rain seldom falls; a bar¬ 
ren, sandy soil; mountains totally impassable. 
Well, now, what are we going to do in this 



Barb6 Marbois —The Chief Agent of France 
in the Sale of Louisiana 


case? How are you going to apply steam? 
Have you made anything like an estimate of 
the cost of a railroad from here to the 
Columbia? Why, the wealth of the Indies 
would be insufficient. Of what use will this 
be for agricultural purposes? Why, I would 
not for that purpose give a pinch of snuff for 
the whole territory. I thank God for his 
mercy in placing the Rocky Mountains 
there! 

And yet within twenty years from that 
time four self-reliant and courageous 
California merchants, living in the town 









6 


Territorial Expansion 


of Sacramento, found a way to build a 
railroad half the distance, where they met 
another railroad built across the Rocky 
Mountains oy some equally enterprising 
Boston merchants; and there are now in 
the United States five transcontinental 
railroads where Senator McDuffie could 
see no way to apply steam and to accom¬ 
plish which he thought that only the 
wealth of the Indies was adequate. 

In 1846, when Mr. Webster was defend¬ 
ing, from his seat in the Senate, his part 
taken in establishing our northeastern 
boundary-line, he drew a comparison be¬ 
tween the importance of the Columbia 
River and the value of England’s conces- 



President Monroe — One of the Negotiators of 
the Purchase of Louisiana, and President 
when Florida was Purchased. 


sion in allowing the people of Aroostook 
County in the State of Maine, the free use 
of the St. John River through New Bruns¬ 
wick to the ocean. He said, “ We have 
heard a great deal lately of the immense 
value and importance of the Columbia 
River and its navigation; but I will un¬ 
dertake to say that, for all purposes of 
human use, the St. John is worth a hun¬ 
dred times as much as the Columbia is, or 
ever will be.” And yet the Columbia is 
one of the noblest rivers on this continent, 


and of vast importance to the commerce of 
three States of the Union. It is navigable 
for three hundred miles, and a tributary 
(the Snake River) extends its commer¬ 
cial importance one hundred and eighty 
miles farther. 

I have no doubt that it was because of 
the pessimistic view taken by statesmen 
like Webster as to the prospective value of 
the Trans-Rocky-Mountain region, that 
we finally withdrew our claims north of 
the forty-ninth parallel and gave to Great 
Britain the most valuable portion of her 
present British possessions on the Pacific. 
But for this inexcusable diplomatic blun¬ 
der, by which we were led to recede from 
the 54° 40' parallel to the forty-ninth, we 
would to-day have an unbroken front on 
the Pacific Ocean from the northern 
boundary of Mexico to Bering Straits, 
and with it a strip of land west of the 
Lake of the Woods 350 miles wide and 
2,100 miles long west of the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains. As we now see it, the concession 
made by our Government was almost a 
crime; for it not only took from us a 
vast domain of the highest value for its 
mineral and agricultural wealth, but it 
made possible the Canadian Pacific Rail¬ 
way, which is a standing menace to our 
transcontinental lines, and by which Great 
Britain secures superior advantages in 
competing for the trade of the Orient. 
The cry of “ Fifty-four-forty or fight!” 
was silenced by the same timidity of judg¬ 
ment and feebleness of vision into the 
future which I fear lie at the root of the 
opposition now made to our new acquisi¬ 
tions of territory. 

Great opportunities come but infre¬ 
quently to individuals or to nations. It is 
the wise only who see and embrace them. 

An interesting and very important ques¬ 
tion has arisen as to the powers of Con¬ 
gress over the Territories and the recip¬ 
rocal rights of their inhabitants and the 
citizens of the States and organized Terri¬ 
tories of the Union. The importance of 
the question lies in the fact that if by the 
mere act of acquiring territory, whether by 
conquest or by treaty, the Constitution 
and laws of the United States immediately 
apply in all their force to this Territory, it 
follows that our tariff laws at once apply, 
and two important things result. First, 







Territorial Expansion 


7 


other nations can not be allowed to import 
goods into those territories without paying 
the same duties as are imposed in the ports 
of the United States, and the “ open- 
door ” policy cannot be carried out because 
our Constitution declares that “ all duties, 
imposts and excises shall be uniform 
throughout the United States ”; and 
therefore neither the President nor Con¬ 
gress can open the door, at Manila, for ex¬ 
ample, to the unrestricted commerce of the 
world without breaking down the tariff 
wall in all the United States. Second, 
there must be absolute free trade between 
the States and Territories of the United 
States and these newly-acquired posses¬ 
sions; and as Mr. Carnegie claims, he 
must be permitted to take his steel rails 
to the Philippines free of any duty to be 
there imposed, and bring back a cargo of 
sugar and tobacco which shall be permit¬ 
ted to enter our ports free of duty. This 
he claims is his constitutional right, which 
attached the moment we acquired those 
islands. 

The question is, Has Congress the pow¬ 
er to make laws for the government of 
these territories which shall protect the 
existing States and Territories from any 
unfair competition by these new terri¬ 
tories? Plas it the power to allow goods 
from foreign countries to be taken into 
these new territories upon equal terms 
with the other States and Territories ? It 
will be perceived that to deny the power 
to say upon what terms all nations may 
share the trade of our new possessions 
with us is also to deny the power to protect 
our beet and cane sugar and tobacco in¬ 
dustries, for example, from competing pro¬ 
ducts brought from these new territories. 
The advocates of the “ closed door ” seem 
to have conceived the notion that they 
must, to secure their object, deny all pow¬ 
er in Congress over the subject, overlook¬ 
ing a possible danger to our industries to 
which the contention leads. If, on the 
contrary, the power of Congress be con¬ 
ceded, the whole subject then at once be¬ 
comes one of policy only, and we are free 
to pass such laws as shall conserve and 
protect all interests. 

I am strongly persuaded that unless it 
be found that Congress has supreme pow¬ 
er over these territories, the friends of ex¬ 
pansion will lose very many supporters. 


After a somewhat careful examination of 
the question, I have become entirely satis¬ 
fied that the power rests in Congress, and 
that it is plainly derivable from the Con¬ 
stitution. The question is under debate 
in this country and justifies something 
more than a passing examination in this 
connection. 

I must refresh the recollection of the 
reader as to the earlier history of our 
Government. It will be remembered that 
the Colonies were not brought together 
under the Articles of Confederation until 
two years after the War of the Revolution 
began, and these articles continued until 
March 4, 1789, when the new government 
went into operation under the Constitu¬ 
tion. The ratification of the Articles of 
Confederation by the States was long post¬ 
poned on account of the claims made by 
some of the great States to certain unde¬ 
fined territory. The other States stren¬ 
uously contended that the territory unset¬ 
tled at the commencement of the war, and 
claimed by the British crown, if wrested 
from the common enemy by the blood and 
treasure of the thirteen States, ought to 
be deemed the common property of all, 
subject to the disposition of Congress for 
the general good. Hew York State, in 
1781, was the first to yield to the patriotic 
appeals made to the land-holding States, 
and she was followed by Virginia, in 1782, 
and by others soon after; so that before 
the Constitution was adopted this irritat¬ 
ing question was finally settled. 

The appeal made to the States to cede 
their territory was preceded by an act of 
Congress promising that the ceded terri¬ 
tory should be disposed of for the common 
benefit of the Union, and formed into re¬ 
publican States, with the same rights of 
sovereignty, freedom, and independence 
as the other States. Said the Federalist, 
in 1788:— 

Congress have assumed the administration 
of this stock. They have begun to make it 
productive. Congress have undertaken to 
do more; they have proceeded to form new 
States; to erect temporary governments; 
to appoint officers for them; and to pre¬ 
scribe the conditions on which such States 
shall be admitted into the Confederacy. 

And now comes into view the famous 
ordinance of Congress, of the 13th of July, 
1787, which Mr. Story in his Commenta- 


8 


Territorial Expansion 


ries says, “ has ever since constituted, in 
most respects, the model of all our terri¬ 
torial governments; and is equally re¬ 
markable for the brevity and exactness of 
its text, and for its masterly display of 
fundamental principles of civil and reli¬ 
gious liberty.” There was doubt expressed 



Robert R. Livingston — A Prominent Actor in 
the Louisiana Purchase 


at the time as to the power of the Confed¬ 
eracy under its articles to acquire terri¬ 
tory, and the Federalist declared that it 
was “ done without the least color of con¬ 
stitutional authority.” The exercise of the 
power, however, by the Confederacy was 
never drawn in question before the courts 
of that day. But to remove all doubt as 
to the power to admit new States and “ to 
dispose of and make all needful rules and 
regulations respecting the territory or 
other property belonging to the United 
States,” section 3, article IV of the Con¬ 
stitution, was adopted. 

We need spend no time to search for the 
power to acquire territory. That question 
was settled when we made the Louisiana 
purchase in 1803, and has been forever set 
at rest by successive acquisitions. The 
power to acquire territory, Mr. Story says, 
would seem so naturally to flow from the 
sovereignty confided to it (the Government), 
as not to admit of very serious question. 


The Constitution confers on the Government 
of the Union the power of making war and 
of making treaties; and it seems, conse¬ 
quently, to possess the power of acquiring 
territory, either by conquest or by treaty. If 
the cession be by treaty, the terms of that 
treaty must be obligatory, for it is the law 
of the land. And if it stipulates for the en¬ 
joyment by the inhabitants of the rights, 
privileges, and immunities of citizens of the 
United States, and for the admission of the 
territory into the Union, as a State, these 
stipulations must be equally obligatory. 
They are within the scope of the constitu¬ 
tional authority of the Government, which 
has the right to acquire territory, to make 
treaties, and to admit new States into the 
Union. 

Those persons who deny the power of 
Congress for which I contend lay great 
stress upon section 8, article I, which de¬ 
clares that “ all duties, imposts, and ex¬ 
cises shall be uniform throughout the 
United States,” and section 9 of the same 
article, which says that “ no preference 
shall be given by any regulation of com¬ 
merce or revenue to the ports of one State 
over those of another; nor shall vessels 
bound to or from one State be obliged to 
enter, clear, or pay duties in another.” 
The plain and conclusive construction of 
these provisions is that they apply to the 
States, and do not apply to Territories, ex¬ 
cept as they are made to apply by some act 
of Congress or by the terms of the treaty 
under which the territory is admitted into 
the Union. 

We are often pointed to some organized 
Territory and asked if Congress can lay a 
different duty or impost there from that of 
any State; and if not, how can Congress 
exercise the power in the Philippines, or 
Porto Rico, or Cuba, or Hawaii ? The an¬ 
swer is obvious and simple; and herein 
will be found a legislative construction of 
our Constitution which has been given 
whenever any new territorial government 
has been erected in the Union. By exam¬ 
ining the statutes it will be found that, 
with two exceptions, I believe, to be 
noticed later, Congress has in providing 
organic acts for the Territories brought 
them within the provisions of the act of 
1787, or the Constitution of the United 
States; so that in coming into the Union 
they came with their rights and immuni¬ 
ties fully defined. If it be true that these 
provisions by their own force extended at 








Territorial Expansion 


9 


once to any newly-acquired territory, no 
such legislation was needed. 

It is because Congress guaranteed these 
rights and immunities by the acts of ad¬ 
mission into the Union, and not because 
of any inherent rights, or rights under the 
Constitution or previous laws, that no 
preferential legislation can be made to 
apply to them. To make this clear, atten¬ 
tion is asked to some of these laws for the 
admission of new Territories. When New 
Mexico was erected into a Territory in 
1850, section 1? of the act enacted “ That 
the Constitution, and all laws of the 
United States, which are not locally in¬ 
applicable, shall have the same force and 
effect within said Territory of New Mex¬ 
ico as elsewhere in the United States.” 
California was admitted in the same year, 
as a State, and the act declared that she 
was “ admitted on an equal footing with 
the original States in all respects what¬ 
ever.” She came in declaring that slavery 
should never exist within her boundaries. 
But Texas came in by the same act which 
admitted New Mexico; and the act de¬ 
clared that she should be admitted with or 
without slavery as she might by her con¬ 
stitution provide. Utah came in the same 
year, under like guarantees given New 
Mexico. And so, also, Colorado, Dakota, 
and Idaho, in 1861. In the act admitting 
Dakota the act governing New Mexico was 
extended over Dakota; but it was specially 
provided that slavery should not exist 
therein, and the act repealed all laws of 
New Mexico or of Congress establishing 
or recognizing slavery. The Constitution 
and laws of the United States were ex¬ 
tended over Montana upon its admission, 
in 1864. And so, also, in the case of Wy¬ 
oming. By act of May 2, 1890, Oklahoma 
was admitted. In that act certain of the 
statutes of the State of Arkansas relating 
to administration of government were ex¬ 
tended over the Indian Territory. The 
Constitution of the United States and all 
laws thereof which prohibit crimes in any 
place within the jurisdiction of the United 
States (except the District of Columbia) 
were given effect in the Indian Territory, 
except in certain enumerated cases. In 
the case of the Indian Territory the Con¬ 
stitution and laws were extended to it, but 
with important restrictions and excep¬ 
tions. If, as is claimed, the Constitution 


and laws of the United States are extended 
over acquired territory by their own force, 
how can Congress extend certain provi¬ 
sions and withhold others, as has been fre¬ 
quently done? 

Alaska furnishes an example similar to 
that of the Indian Territory. In the case 
of Alaska it has been a part of the Union, 
—that is, the territory has belonged to the 
United States—for thirty-two years, and 
it has never yet been admitted into the 
Union under any form of territorial gov¬ 
ernment. The act of 1884 constituted the 
territory a civil judicial district, and pro¬ 
vided for the appointment of a governor, 
with very limited duties; a district court 
was provided for, with the necessary offi¬ 
cers. Commissioners were given, by ap- 
pointment of the President, with powers of 
justices of the peace under the laws of 
Oregon, where not in conflict with the 



James K. Polk—President when Texas was 
Admitted and Mexico Ceded 


laws of Congress. The laws of that State, 
with certain important restrictions, were 
made the law in Alaska. The people were 
not given any legislative assembly or dele¬ 
gate in Congress, as in other Territories. 
Certain laws relating to the unorganized 
Territory of Alaska were continued in 
force, and the importation, manufacture, 
and sale of intoxicating liquors in the dis- 





IO 


Territorial Expansion 


trict, except for medicinal, mechanical, 
and scientific purposes, was prohibited. 

It was under this latter provision and 
certain regulations made by the President 
as to the sale of liquors that the case of 
Edleman v. United States (86 Fed. Rep. 
456) arose, and which was decided in the 
Circuit Court of Appeals sitting in San 
Francisco. Edleman was indicted for 
selling liquors within the district. He was 
convicted, and appealed to the Circuit 
Court of Appeals. The appeal was heard 
by Justices Morrow, Gilbert, and Ross. It 
was contended that Congress had not the 
constitutional power to interfere with the 
right of a citizen to own and hold proper- 



William H. Seward — Negotiated the Purchase 
of Alaska 

ty without distinction as to kind; that 
whisky is property; that Congress can not 
impose restrictions upon commerce pro¬ 
hibiting the sale of a particular commo¬ 
dity; that if Congress may regulate the 
sale of whisky as a police regulation, it 
can only enact laws applicable alike to all 
Territories. The court said, speaking 
through Mr. Justice Morrow:— 

The answer to these and other like objec¬ 
tions urged in the brief of counsel for de¬ 
fendant is found in the now well-established 


doctrine that the Territories of the United 
States are entirely subject to the legislative 
authority of Congress. They are not organ¬ 
ized under the Constitution, nor subject to 
its complex distribution of the powers of 
government as the organic law, but are the 
creation, exclusively, of the legislative de¬ 
portment, and subject to its jurisdiction and 
control. (Benner v. Potter, 9 How. 235, 242.) 
The United States, having rightfully ac¬ 
quired the Territories, and being the only 
government which can impose laws upon 
them, has the entire dominion and sovereign¬ 
ty, national, municipal, federal, and state. 
(Ins. Co. v. Canter, 1 Peters, 511, 542; Cross 
v. Harrison, l(j How. 164, 193; Nat’l Bank 
v. Yankton Co., 101 U. S. 129, 133; Murphy 
v. Ramsey, 114 U. S. 15, 44; The Mormon 
Cases, 136 U. S. 1, 42, 43; McAllister v. U. S., 
141 U. S. 174, 181; Shively v. Boweby, 152 
U. S. 1, 48.) Under this full and comprehen¬ 
sive authority, Congress has unquestionably 
the power to exclude intoxicating liquors 
from any or all its Territories, or limit their 
sale under such regulations as it may pre¬ 
scribe. It may legislate in accordance with 
the special needs of each locality, and vary 
its regulations to meet the conditions and 
circumstances of the people. Whether the 
subject elsewhere would be a matter of local 
police regulation, or within State control 
under some other power, it is immaterial to 
consider. In a Territory all the functions 
of government are within the legislative jur¬ 
isdiction of Congress, and may be exercised 
through a local government, or directly by 
such legislation as we have now under con¬ 
sideration. 

When this case and the doctrine it lays 
down are considered it must be remem¬ 
bered that the court was dealing with 
Alaska as an unorganized Territory hav¬ 
ing no relation to the Union by any or¬ 
ganic act as other Territories have been 
given. It may be that when a Territory 
has been admitted and the Constitution 
and laws of the United States have been 
extended over it, as in the ease of Arizona 
or New Mexico, Congress cannot there¬ 
after take away any of the fundamental 
rights thus vested in the people. But as 
applicable to a territory situated as is 
Alaska, over which the Government exer¬ 
cises sovereignty by virtue of having pur¬ 
chased or acquired by treaty all the rights 
of the former sovereign, and over which 
the Constitution and laws of the United 
States have not been extended, there can 
be no doubt of the soundness of this de¬ 
cision. 

The situation in the Philippines is pre¬ 
cisely met in an early case entitled Flem- 


Territorial 

ing v. Page, reported in 9th of Howard, 
at page 278. Chief Justice Taney deliv¬ 
ered the opinion of the Supreme Court of 
the United States. It arose during our 
war with Mexico. Our military forces 
were in possession of the port of Tampico, 
in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Cer¬ 
tain goods were shipped from that port to 
the port of Philadelphia. In 1846, Con¬ 
gress passed a law reducing the duty on 
imports so that goods, the product of 
Mexico, shipped from Tampico to Phila¬ 
delphia during our military occupation, 
were not subject to the duties prescribed 
by the act. The collector exacted the 
duties, and hence the suit. I will quote 
some passages from the opinion of the 
learned Chief Justice. He said:— 

The Mexican authorities had been driven 
out, or had submitted to our army and navy; 
and the country was in the exclusive and 
firm possession of the United States, and 
governed by its military authorities, acting 
under the orders of the President. But it 
does not follow that it was a part of the 
United States, or that it ceased to be a for¬ 
eign country in the sense of which these 
words are used in the acts of Congress. . . . 
The United States, it is true, may extend its 
boundaries by conquest or treaty, and may 
demand the cession of territory as the con¬ 
dition of peace. . . . But this can only 

be done by the treaty-making power or the 
legislative authority, and is not a part of 
the power conferred upon the President by 
the declaration of war. . . . He may in¬ 

vade the hostile country, and subject it to 
the sovereignty and authority of the United 
States. But his conquests do not enlarge the 
boundaries of this Union, nor extend the 
operation of our institutions and laws be¬ 
yond the limits assigned to them by legis¬ 
lative power. 

He then shows that as to other nations 
they were bound to regard the conquered 
territory as belonging to and part of the 
territory of the United States. 

But yet, [he said] it was not a part of the 
Union. For every nation which acquires 
territory by treaty or conquest, holds it ac¬ 
cording to its own institutions and laws. 
And the relation in which the port of Tam¬ 
pico stood to the United States, while it was 
occupied by their arms, did not depend upon 
the laws of nations, but upon our own Con¬ 
stitution and acts of Congress. . . . But 

the boundaries of the United States, as they 
existed when war was declared against 
Mexico, were not extended by the conquest. 

. . . They remained unchanged. And 

every place which was out of the limits of 
the United States, as previously established 


Expansion 11 

by the political authorities of the Govern¬ 
ment, was still foreign; nor did our laws 
extend over it. 

He then shows that after Florida was 
ceded to the United States and our forces 
had taken possession of Pensacola, and 
Florida had become a part of the Union, 
goods imported from Pensacola were made 
to pay duties until an act was passed by 
Congress erecting it into a collection dis¬ 
trict. And so, also, was it held when 
Louisiana was purchased. 

This case leads inevitably to the con¬ 
clusion reached by Judge Morrow and his 
associates. It means and decides that un¬ 
til Congress has extended our Constitution 
and our laws over the Philippines no duti¬ 
able goods can come from those islands to 
our ports without paying the duties fixed 
by our laws. It means also that having 
acquired the Philippines these islands 
passed under the unrestricted sovereignty 
and control of the United States, and the 
Constitution and laws of this country will 
go into operation there so far, and so far 
only, as Congress shall from time to time 
declare. 

If the Constitution and all the laws of 
the United States were extended over the 
Philippines after such treaty, without res¬ 
ervation or exception, unquestionably 
there could be no “ open door , 77 and equal¬ 
ly so there could be no preferential duties 
protecting the present States and Terri¬ 
tories from the competing products of 
those islands. But what I say, and what, 
I think, rests upon abundant authority, is 
that the whole subject will be within the 
power of Congress, and it may exercise 
that power so as to allow all nations to 
trade in those islands on an equal footing 
with ourselves, which is what I understand 
by the “ open door / 7 and it may impose a 
duty on goods brought to this country 
from those islands. The whole subject, in 
my opinion, becomes one not of power, but 
of policy. I believe, also, that any other 
solution of the question would cast great 
doubt upon the wisdom of entering upon 
a policy of acquiring and governing 
remote regions of the world. By this solu¬ 
tion we are left with free hands to legis¬ 
late upon the broad plane of the highest 
and best interests of the Territories them¬ 
selves, and with due regard to the varying 


Territorial Expansion 


1 2 

conditions by which they may be en¬ 
vironed. 

The argument might be greatly 
strengthened by citations from other decis¬ 
ions of the Supreme Court and by con¬ 
ducting the reader along the pathway of 
our past history in our dealing with the 
slavery question and with the Mormon, 
the Indian, and other questions relating 
to the Territories. How can we justify 
the compromise measures of 1820? How 
can the acts of Congress forbidding the 
owners of slaves from taking their prop¬ 
erty into Territories find a resting-place in 
the Constitution, unless it be under the 
power given to make all needful rules and 
regulations respecting the Territories 
and other property belonging to the 
United States? 

It was said by the Supreme Court in 
Murphy v. Eamsey (114 U. S. 15-44) that 
“ the constitutional power of Congress to 


enact laws for the government of the Ter¬ 
ritories has passed beyond the stage of 
controversy to final judgment. The peo¬ 
ple of the United States, as sovereign own¬ 
ers of the national territories, have 
supreme power over them and their inhab¬ 
itants/’ In National Bank v. Yankton 
County, 101 U. S. 129, the Court said, 
“ Congress has full and complete legisla¬ 
tive authority over the people of the 
Territories and all departments of the ter¬ 
ritorial governments. It may do for the 
Territories what the people under the 
Constitution of the United States may do 
for the States.” 

But I forbear further argument. I 
think we may safely look to the Constitu¬ 
tion of our country and to the interpreta¬ 
tion it has received by the highest Court 
in the land to guide our footsteps. And 
this brings me to speak of the Oriental 
Problem and the Philippines. 


TERRITORIAL EXPANSION—II 

THE PHILIPPINES—THE ORIENTAL PROBLEM 

[Concluded in the Overland Monthly, January, 1900] 


I N THE preceding number of this 
magazine 1 endeavored to present the 
history of territorial expansion in this 
country and to show the powers of Con¬ 
gress over the whole subject of legislative 
control of the Territories. The following 
pages will be devoted to a consideration of 
the Oriental Problem and of the policy of 
acquiring the Philippines. 

Both England and the United States, 
under the persuasive appeals of Mr. Bur¬ 
lingame thirty years ago, were led to be¬ 
lieve that China had reached a stage in her 
progress which gave promise of a nation 
able to take care of herself and with which 
treaties could be made on the assumption 
that force was no longer needed to compel 
terms of commercial intercourse. Both 
these countries entered into an agreement 
with China, obtaining from her no great 
concessions, but practically agreeing to 
leave China to work out her own destiny 
in her own way. 

There was at that time no premonition 
that Russia would ever interfere to rob 
China of her statehood, or that Germany 
or France would take possession of any 
part of her territory, or that Japan would 
ever dare to invade her boundaries. Eng¬ 
land and the United States, the two lead¬ 
ing commercial nations of the globe, gave 
no serious consideration to the cloud 
which even then hung over and later broke 
with such fury upon the people of China. 
The weakness and imbecility of her 
government, the cowardice of her soldiers 
and sailors in battle, and her utter lack of 
preparation to defend herself were as¬ 
tounding revelations. 

Russia, however, did not share the opti¬ 
mistic views of other nations as to China. 
Her contiguity of territory and more inti¬ 
mate knowledge of the Chinese people 
gave her an insight denied to others, 
except perhaps Japan, of which she has 
been preparing for years to take advan¬ 
tage. Her great transcontinental rail¬ 


road was but a step towards the ultimate 
control of the trade of Uhina, and it is 
believed by many that it meant the subver¬ 
sion of self-government by her people as 
necessary to that control. Slowly this 
process of absorption has been going on, 
but it was greatly accelerated by the 
Japanese war, until the spectacle was pre¬ 
sented to the world not long since of the 
oldest and most populous nation on the 
globe about to be carved in pieces and 
parceled out as merchandise. Among the 
results of the Spanish-American War has 
been the arrest of this process of disinte¬ 
grating China. 

But what concern is this to us ? you ask. 
It is vital. We are to hold the Philippines 
because of their nearness to this vast hive 
of human activities; and we are concerned 
because we are to be thus near to China. 
A profound student of the situation thus 
writes of this country of four hundred 
millions of human beings:— 

The commercial nations par excellence are 
the Anglo-Teutonic whose interest, in spite 
of an occasional freak of hot-blooded Kais¬ 
ers or the like, is not to break up old 
“ China,” but rather, if possible, to rivet the 
cracks in it. By the introduction of such 
improvements as railways, steamboats, min¬ 
ing, and manufactories, by the infusion of 
the Western spirit as a new nervous force 
into the country, and of Wester t principles 
of action, the resources of China, in men and 
material, would be rendered capable of pro¬ 
viding fertile employment for white men for 
centuries to come. This is the great unde¬ 
veloped estate which the present generation 
of Anglo-Saxons have to leave to their ever- 
increasing offspring,—an inheritance richer 
far than all the prairies and all the gold¬ 
mines in the world, because crowned with a 
wealth of humanity of the most efficient 
quality, an enormous hive of industry need¬ 
ing direction, and with capacities for con¬ 
sumption commensurate with their un¬ 
rivaled powers of production. 

And this is a country now lying at our 
doors, which the rapacity of certain 
nations not long since was about to de¬ 
mand should be dismembered and robbed 
of the right of self-government; the fruits 


Territorial Expansion 


H 

of whose toil they would proclaim shall 
not mingle freely through open doors into 
the channels of the world’s commerce, but 
shall be monopolized by and made to con¬ 
tribute to the power and the wealth of the 
few predatory nations which thus threaten 
to sweep down upon this doomed and 
apparently helpless people. 

China is not yet disintegrated or de¬ 
stroyed. Shall the United States longer 
remain neutral or indifferent to the fate of 
this great empire? In this our interests 
are the same as those of Great Britain. 
Thomas Jefferson was not alarmed at the 
thought of an alliance with her when the 
fate of the South American republics hung 
in the balance; nor should we now hesi¬ 
tate to invite her co-operation in staying 
the hand that would destroy China and 
close her ports against the free commerce 
of the world. I repeat what Mr. Jefferson 
said to Mr. Monroe: “ With Great Britain 
on our side, we need not fear the whole 
world.” In our new and greatly enlarged 
sphere of governmental control, which 
happily coincides with and is in no wise 
antagonistic to the aspirations of Great 
Britain, except as friendly commercial 
competitors, there is every reason why we 
should eradicate whatever of feelings of 
hostility we may have heretofore felt to¬ 
wards the mother country. It is our duty, 
as I conceive, to show to our people that 
the time has come (I hope to remain for¬ 
ever), when these two great English- 
speaking nations are to be found “ once 
more side by side in the same cause.” It 
is for us to ursre as Jefferson did in 1823, 
“ that we should most sedulously cherish a 
cordial friendship ” with our English 
cousins. 

I am not prepared to say that the 
Philippines are without meaning unless 
we can have the untrammeled right to 
compete for the China trade, although the 
writer from whom I have quoted so 
thinks; but the Philippines would lose 
much of their value to us, rich as they are, 
should the government of China pass into 
the despotic control of the Czar of all the 
Bussias. In the September number of 
this periodical I endeavored to point out 
the importance of China’s commerce to 
this country. I need not further refer to 
that feature of the subject. 

China can no longer remain isolated or 


stationary. She is surrounded on all sides 
by aspiring and ambitious nations, having 
more or less of stable footing on her 
shores; and now by our acquisition of the 
Philippines a new factor in the problem of 
the Orient has been introduced with which 
the nations of the earth must hereafter 
deal. By far the most aggressive nation 
in this field of commercial activities is 
Russia; and as the map discloses, her ad¬ 
vantageous position and her disposition 
towards territorial aggrandizement make 
her a most dangerous competitor, threat¬ 
ening, possibly, the very autonomy of 
China itself. I do not myself believe it, 
but many who have watched this absorbing 
drama of the Orient do so believe, that 
Russia has been for years leading up to 
the consummation of China’s utter subju¬ 
gation. 

It is a most significant fact that the 
Muscovite and the Tartar races inter¬ 
cross with decided advantages to each. 
Napoleon’s sarcastic epigram will be re¬ 
membered : “ Scratch a Russian, and you 
will find a Tartar.” It is this homo¬ 
geneity of the two races, coupled with the 
aggressive movements of Russia in China, 
that led an observant writer to remark 
that “ No one familiar with the subject 
doubts that it means the eventual occupa¬ 
tion and absorption by Russia of Man¬ 
churia, Corea, and all the dependencies of 
China north and east of the Great Wall.” 
A glance at the map will show what it 
means with Russia in control of Man¬ 
churia, the Gulf of Liao-Tung, and the 
Corean Peninsula, and with the terminus 
of its Transcaspian railroad but a short 
distance from Peking. 

The Manchurians are said to possess all 
the qualities which go to make good sol¬ 
diers. In the hands of a power like 
Russia, with her facilities for moving large 
bodies of armed men drawn from her 
standing army, it needs no gift of proph¬ 
ecy to forecast the doom of China, if the 
rest of the world stands idly by. And the 
subjugation of China by Russia may dis¬ 
turb the peace of the world. 

And now a word as to the policy of ac¬ 
quiring the Philippines. 

The acquisition of the Hawaiian Islands 
is an accomplished fact. Thus far we 
have gone beyond the power to recede. 


Territorial Expansion 


1 5 


The public mind seems to have settled 
down to the wisdom of acquiring Porto 
Rico. The objections to the annexation of 
Cuba relate rather to our avowed purpose 
respecting that island when war was de¬ 
clared with Spain than to any inherent 
difficulties to be anticipated in governing 
the island. This is all non-contiguous 
territory. We must encounter in all these 
islands the problem of governing races 
essentially different from our own. In all 
of them we are to penetrate tropical 
climates and enter upon the development 
of new industries and engage in an agri¬ 
culture with which , we are unacquainted. 
So far as the Hawaiian Islands are con¬ 
cerned, we have in absorbing them stepped 
beyond our own hemisphere. It is a 
voyage of seven days and 2,089 miles to 
reach them from San Francisco. It seems 
to me that whatever may be the difficulties 
that stand in the way of our governing the 
Philippines, when compared with the is¬ 
lands of which I have just spoken, they 
present a problem differing only in degree. 

Ex-Senator Edmunds of Vermont has 
condensed the objections in a short para¬ 
graph. He says:— 

In a business point of view, we must take 
into consideration the cost of governing the 
Philippine Islands. This cost can not, in all 
human probability, be met by the taxation 
of the inhabitants to any considerable extent. 
If we take them, we must govern them by 
external power, and not through any auton¬ 
omy of their own. This means a large and 
expensive civil list, which must in the main 
be paid out of the treasury of the United 
States. The climate is, of course, unwhole¬ 
some for Americans, and the death-rate of 
our officers there would be very large. It 
will also require an American army of de¬ 
fense for the preservation of peace and 
order of many thousand men, and an Ameri¬ 
can navy of six or more ships and probably 
two thousand men, all exposed, like the civil¬ 
ians, to the constant hostility of the climate, 
to say nothing of that of the inhabitants of 
most, if not all, of the islands. 

If to this catalogue of anticipated diffi¬ 
culties there may be added the danger of 
becoming embroiled in European politics, 
we have before us about the whole field of 
opposition. I will briefly reply to some of 
these points of objection and state some of 
the reasons in support of what seems to be 
the policy upon which we have entered. 

The Philippines extend north and south 
sixteen degrees, and east and west nine de¬ 


grees, the southern extremity reaching 
within about six degrees of the equator, 
and have a population of seven millions. 
Of the twelve hundred islands, about one 
third only are inhabited. The island of 
Luzon contains more than half the entire 
population and about half the entire area. 
In the acquisition of these islands, there 
has been added to our national domain a 
territory measuring 115,000 square miles 
—an area equal to one third the present 
square miles of all the States comprised in 
the original thirteen colonies. Compared 
with foreign countries, this new domain 
is more than half the size of either France, 
Germany, Australia, or Spain; it is four 
fifths the area of the entire kingdom of 
Japan; it is almost equal to the combined 
square miles of England, Scotland, Ire¬ 
land, and Wales, and is greater than all 
Italy. It is more than twenty times 
the area of the Hawaiian Archipelago, 
with a population eighty times greater 
than that gem of the island world. 
This island empire of the Philippines 
lies nearer to the city of San Francisco 
than to any other market in the western 
world; and when these islands are once 
restored to conditions of peace, and fall 
under the permanent protection of our 
flag, the trade of their seven millions 
of people will naturally turn towards 
their new protectors and their friends, 
and will enter the Golden Gate to be here 
distributed to the markets of the United 
States and Europe. 

The commercial importance of these 
islands is difficult to estimate owing to the 
failure of the Spanish Government to 
make reliable and complete record of its 
business relations with them. From the 
“ Statesman’s Year Book for 1898 ” it 
appears that the estimated public revenue 
collected (1894-95) was about $13,500,- 
000, and the expenditure $13,250,000. 
The revenue collected annually by the 
Spanish Government in its misrule of that 
country has been more than double the 
State tax in California to carry on our 
complex system and support all our public 
institutions on a total taxable valuation of 
over $1,200,000,000. 

The known exports from the islands in 
1897, before American occupation, as re¬ 
ported by an agent of the Treasury De¬ 
partment, amounted to $41,342,280; 


6 


Territorial Expansion 


while the imports were $17,400,000. 
This shows a trade balance in favor of the 
islands of nearly $24,000,000. The chief 
exports are sugar and hemp, tobacco-leaf, 
cigars, and copra (dried kernel of the 
cocoanut broken up). Of the import 
trade the United Kingdom controls thirty- 
four per cent.; Hong Kong and Amoy, 
twenty-one per cent.; Spain, thirteen per 
cent.; Singapore and British India, ten 
per cent. Our country has had but little 
of this trade. Articles of import are rice, 
flour, wines, cotton goods, petroleum, and 
eoal. In the Encyclopaedia Britannica the 
exports are given for 1880 at $29,996,000, 
from which it would appear that exports 
have increased considerably in recent 
years, notwithstanding internal political 
disturbances and the repressive tendency 
of Spanish rule. In all the islands there 
are but seventy miles of railroad and 
seven hundred and twenty miles of tele¬ 
graph lines. The coin in use is the Mexi¬ 
can dollar. All other foreign coins have 
heretofore been forbidden circulation. 
Local fractional money has been coined 
there. The chief products are hemp, 
sugar, coffee, copra, tobacco-leaf, cigars, 
and indigo, to which will soon be added 
hard woods for export. Like all the is¬ 
lands of the archipelago, the soil is exceed¬ 
ingly rich and productive and capable of 
greatly increased production. 

Manufactures have reached no ad¬ 
vanced stage, but there is produced there 
a great variety of textile fabrics (pina 
fibers, silk, and cotton) some of which are 
said to be of great excellence and beauty. 
The manufactures are chiefly hats, mats, 
baskets, ropes, furniture, coarse pottery, 
carriages, and musical instruments. 
Hemp is largely taken to Hong Kong, and 
there manufactured into cordage by the 
English. The native has been given 
neither opportunity nor encouragement to 
advance in civilizing pursuits. Practi¬ 
cally robbed of all the fruits of his toil by 
the exactions of his oppressors, life to him 
has possessed none of the inducements to 
get on in the world, such as a liberal gov¬ 
ernment, which we shall establish, will 
offer him. 

The contention that the Philippines are 
politically undesirable, if not impossible of 
governmental control, because of their re¬ 
moteness, is a claim that fails to take into 


account the modern steamship and the 
submarine cable. With the inventions 
that have been made and the improve¬ 
ments that have followed in the develop¬ 
ment of modern transportation, time only 
has come to be the factor considered in the 
measurement of distance. The overland 
Argonaut consumed more months in 
reaching the land of his hopes and dreams, 
than is now required to circle the globe. 
And for the first twenty years of its Anglo- 
Saxon history California was, on an aver¬ 
age, full thirty days distant from the 
capitol at Washington—now it is about 
four. What the more powerful loco¬ 
motives, steel rails, air-brakes, and general 
betterment have done to increase speed 
and economize expense on land by rail¬ 
ways, the steel hull, the screw propeller, 
and triple-expansion engine have done for 
the steamship that plows the ocean’s thor¬ 
oughfare. Since its first creation, the im¬ 
proved expansion engine has lessened the 
distance that lies between Great Britain 
and the most remote of her extended pos¬ 
sessions by more than one half, and has 
thereby increased the loyalty of her dis¬ 
tant colonies more than all the well- 
studied legislation that had gone before. 

The political bonds of a country are 
naturally no greater than the strength of 
the commercial arteries that unite its peo¬ 
ple. This has been the experience of all 
colonizing nations, and was the inspiration 
that led our own Government to grant 
the lands and indorse the bonds that built 
our transcontinental railways. Pursuing 
the same principle of known law, when the 
United States shall subsidize a Western 
fleet possessing the speed of the present 
Atlantic liners, it will have brought Ma¬ 
nila within fifteen days of San Francisco 
and within less than twenty days of the 
capitol at Washington—a result that will 
place the Philippines nearer to New York 
and the capitol than was California during 
the first twenty years of its history as a 
State. Furthermore, it will have estab¬ 
lished a commercial artery assuring to us 
a supremacy in trade that will in turn 
make loyal the now distant people, and 
thereby, in great measure, will have solved 
their form of government. Even now, 
under the present unsettled conditions, a 
man leaving any city on the Atlantic sea¬ 
board can reach Manila in nearly the same 


Territorial Expansion 


*7 


time and at about the same expense as was 
required to reach San Francisco from a 
like Eastern port at any time antedating 
the completion of the first transcontinen¬ 
tal railway. Moreover, the lessening of 
freight rates that has followed these im¬ 
proved and increased transportation facil¬ 
ities, permits the shipment of a ton of 
freight from Manila to New York to-day 
at an expense no greater than it cost to 
ship a ton of like freight from San Fran¬ 
cisco to New York at any time prior to 
1869. With a like encouragement extend¬ 
ed to the Philippines that was given to the 
Pacific States, the American planter and 
merchant in these islands will find himself 
much nearer to the continental markets of 
San Francisco and New York and the 
capitol at Washington than was San 
Francisco to the Eastern cities named dur¬ 
ing the decades of the "50’s and ’60’s. 

When so patriotic a citizen and so pro¬ 
found a statesman as Judge Edmunds 
puts forward the additional cost to our 
Government in holding these island pos¬ 
sessions as a reason for withdrawing our 
claims to them the objection cannot be 
ignored; and yet we rested the acquisition 
of the Northwest Territory and California 
on no such considerations. Governments 
do not annex territory as a man adds farm 
to farm. Motives much higher control the 
minds of statesmen in determining poli¬ 
cies looking towards territorial aggran¬ 
dizement. But let us consider this point 
for a moment. It is a part of the history 
of the Netherlands in India that a reason¬ 
able tax upon industries not only pays the 
expense of the army and navy, but there 
remains a surplus after expending eight 
million dollars in constructing public 
works and four million dollars in public 
instruction. The cost of administration is 
set down at $24,000,000, which includes 
the salary of $100,000 to the Governor- 
General and $100,000 for entertaining; 
and, numerous salaried officials, native and 
Dutch, who receive from $800 to $32,000 
per annum. I can conceive no necessity 
for such extravagance in controlling the 
Philippines. Mrs. Scidmore informs us in 
her book of travel in Java that the army 
consists of 30,000 men, two thirds of whom 
are natives, and it is only because of the 
outbreak in Sumatra that makes even this 
number necessary. There is no large 


force required in Java, where are 23,- 
000,000 people. We have a right to as¬ 
sume, I think, that under such government 
as we shall establish no large and costly 
army will be required, and no richly en¬ 
dowed list of civil functionaries. 

Whether we hold the Philippines or not, 
it is certain we are to have a large navy. 
A large part of this navy will find its nat¬ 
ural theater of action on the Asiatic 
coast. The cost will be the same whether 
our ships have waters and commerce of our 
own to patrol and protect or whether they 
are to observe merely the march of pro¬ 
gress of other nations. But whatever the 
cost it can never reach the material bene¬ 
fits which must flow from our occupation 
of the Philippines. Secretary Long says, 
that a large navy implies necessarily a 
large merchant marine, and that a large 
merchant marine is impossible without a 
large coasting-trade. The interoceanic 
islands under our control will enlarge our 
coasting trade by virtue of our shipping 
laws which it is not unlikeiy will be ex¬ 
tended over them. 

One word as to the danger of being em¬ 
broiled in European wars by the ownership 
of the Philippines. Again I invite atten¬ 
tion to the example of the Netherlands in 
India. I believe it was in 1816 when the 
English finally ceded the islands to Hol¬ 
land. I can point to no page in the history 
of this century which records that Holland 
has been involved in any European war bv 
reason of her possessions in the East In¬ 
dies. I do not recall at this moment that 
the powers of Europe have engaged in war 
with each other over any of their posses¬ 
sions in the Orient within the last half- 
century. I can see no European compli¬ 
cations which our presence in the East 
Indies is at all likely to create. We go 
there as the lawful successor in interest of 
Spain, whose sovereignty dates back to the 
discovery by Magellan in 1521. Our rights 
rest upon the same foundations as those of 
Great Britain, France, Germany, or any 
other proprietor to other territory in the 
East, and are as absolute and indefeasible 
as those by which we claim sovereignty in 
Alaska; and the United States goes into 
possession of these islands with as much 
assurance of continued peace with Europe 
as we went into the possession of Alaska._ 


8 


Territorial Expansion 


We shall occupy the Philippines with the 
moral and physical force of this great 
country behind us; and such a force 
means peace. 

The assertion that we are not a coloniz¬ 
ing people because of a lack of experience, 
is a statement disputed by every line writ¬ 
ten in nearly three hundred years of Amer¬ 
ican history. Nothing is truer than that 
experience is an indispensable requisite in 
the successful colonization and settlement 
of any new country. With the American 
people this experience began, and the edu¬ 
cation has been continued, from James¬ 
town and Plymouth Rock down to the 
present day. In the beginning of that 
education and experience the Anglo-Saxon 
served an apprenticeship on the Atlantic 
seaboard of one hundred and fifty years 
before he dared penetrate the country three 
hundred miles beyond the point of his first 
landing. It took the Puritan one hundred 
and twenty-five years to venture as far into 
the wilderness as the present State of Ver¬ 
mont; while Daniel Boone did not cross 
the Alleghanies until one hundred and 
sixty }rears after the first settlement had 
been made at the tide waters of the Chesa¬ 
peake. But in these years of apprentice¬ 
ship, these generations of education, there 
was bred a race of self-reliant men, trained 
and equipped with a pioneer experience, a 
confidence, and a courage, who were to 
colonize and settle the continent from the 
Alleghanies to the Pacific,—conquering 
and to conquer three thousand miles 
of wilderness in less than a hundred 
years. Having achieved these results, un¬ 
paralleled in the colonial history of the 
world, when, where, and how did this rug¬ 
ged American pioneer, the sturdiest char¬ 
acter in all history, exhaust his vitality, 
and why should he lose his enterprise on 
reaching the bold shores of the Pacific? 
Assuming “ the son still equal to the sire/’ 
does it not rather suggest that this trained 
experience in conquest of new lands has 
•equipped and qualified the American of to¬ 
day, above all others, to successfully colo¬ 
nize regardless of latitude, and to settle 
regardless of longitude, any new country 
that may tempt his enterprise with an 
honest reward for his industry? 

It is true that the migrations of men 
have, ordinarily, been confined to climatic 
lines of latitude. But in America we find 


the Anglo-Saxon making permanent and 
successful settlement from the Saskatcha- 
wan, in latitude fifty-five degrees, down to 
as low as latitude twenty-four degrees, at 
Key West in Florida. In this wide range 
of changing climate this virile man has 
proved himself competent to endure and 
thrive under temperatures ranging from 
sixty degrees below zero, in Manitoba, to 
that of one hundred and twenty degrees 
above, in Arizona. No region of the earth 
of equal latitude shows greater varying 
temperature than does that found within 
the boundary lines of the United States. 
A people so competent to settle thirty de¬ 
grees of latitude and more than three thou¬ 
sand miles of longitude may well ask what 
natural law prohibits their further ex¬ 
pansion ? 

In proof that the Anglo-Saxon is in¬ 
capable of settling the tropical countries, 
we are pointed to England’s long years of 
supremacy in India, and her failure to suc¬ 
cessfully colonize any part of that country. 

At the time of her conquest in the 
Orient, Great Britain found her main¬ 
land possessions already swarming with 
the densest population on the globe, a pop¬ 
ulation where surplus of teeming millions 
prohibited further settlement, nor did she 
ever seriously attempt it. But England 
is now an*d has been for several decades 
engaged in the successful settlement of her 
island and other tropical possessions. She 
has already successfully colonized and set¬ 
tled Australia up to a point within ten 
degrees of the equator, and is now rapidly 
extending her settlements in Africa 
straight north toward the tropical heart of 
that continent. 

Nor is England alone, among the peo¬ 
ples of the north of Europe, engaged in 
civilizing and controlling tropical coun¬ 
tries. Holland of late years has been 
rapidly increasing her settlements in Su¬ 
matra, until that island now contains a 
white population of not less than fifty 
thousand. Sumatra lies directly under the 
equator, and is universally conceded to be 
the most unhealthy of the islands in the 
eastern hemisphere. For this north of 
Europe Dutchman it has never been 
claimed that he is the equal of the Anglo- 
Saxon as a colonizer, and still he has 
proven a permanent and successful settler 
in the tropics, the colony to which he be- 


Territorial Expansion 


9 


longs being rated as the wealthiest, per 
capita, of any colony in any zone of the 
world. If this island of Sumatra will sus¬ 
tain fifty thousand prosperous Dutchmen, 
what would prevent, so far as climatic 
conditions are concerned, another fifty 
thousand, or any multiple of that number, 
doing equally well? 

Java is a neighbor of the Philippines. 
Her native population of 23,000,000 is not 
unlike that of the Philippines and pos¬ 
sesses, as do the Filipinos, many character¬ 
istics of the Japanese. There are 48,000 
Europeans residing on the island, 
who are helping to work out the prob¬ 
lem of a better civilization for the peo¬ 
ple and to develop the natural resources 
of the country. The Netherlands in the 
East India islands furnish a striking ex¬ 
ample of what may be done by a paternal¬ 
ism not altogether wise, under the 
direction of a superior race, in the control 
of these island people. The population 
of Java increased after 1831 from 6,000,- 
000 to 23,000,000 and the revenue from 
$1,250,000 to $50,000,000. In 1889 the 
imports of Java were $70,000,000 and the 
■exports $78,000,000. The balance sheet 
of the Government for 1889 is an interest¬ 
ing exhibit:— 

REVENUE. 

Taxes .$16,000,000 

Monopolies. 12,400,000 

Receipts from govern¬ 
ment farms for cof¬ 
fee and sugar. 19,600,000 

From Railways, school 
fees and other 

sources . 5,600,000 

-$53,600,000 

EXPENDITURES. 

Instruction .$ 4,000,000 

Army and Navy. 16,000,000 

Public Works, rail¬ 
roads . 4,000,000 

Other. 4,000,000 

Administration . 24,000,000 

-$52,000,000 

The item of $16,000,000 for the army 
and navy is largely increased by insurrec¬ 
tions in Sumatra, and is not a constant 
■quantity. But we cannot fail to observe 
that it is small, and that $8,000,000 are 
expended in public works and $4,000,000 
in public schools. It is observable, also, 
that the revenues exceed the expenditures, 
and the taxes by which they are produced 
are less burdensome than in most States of 
.the Union. 


I cannot avoid the conclusion that if 
Holland, with less than 5,000,000 popula¬ 
tion, at her remote position on the globe, 
can successfully control her possessions in 
the East Indies, with their 32,000,000 of 
people, we may not despair of the task we 
have undertaken. The experience of the 
Netherlands in India shows that the Phil¬ 
ippines may not only be able to support a 
good government, without excessive taxa¬ 
tion, but will probably produce a surplus 
revenue. Nor does it follow that we must 
govern the islands entirely by external 
force after peace shall have been restored. 
The results of a year’s campaigning show 
that our soldiers have not suffered from 
climatic causes as has been predicted. 
There is no evidence to support Senator 
Edmund’s statement that “ the climate is, 
of course, unwholesome for Americans,” 
or that “the death-rate of our officers 
there would be very large.” 

I would not ignore the New England 
opposition to the annexation of the Phil¬ 
ippines, of which Senator Hoar and ex- 
Governor Boutwell are perhaps the most 
sincere and among the ablest representa¬ 
tives. This opposition assumes to plant 
itself chiefly upon the principles of the 
Declaration of Independence, wherein our 
forefathers proclaimed that all men are 
endowed by their Creator with certain in¬ 
alienable rights, and declared that: “To’ 
secure these rights, governments are in¬ 
stituted among men, deriving their just 
powers from the consent of the govern¬ 
ed.” 

As civilization has advanced in the 
world and in its onward march has dis¬ 
placed barbarism, it has never halted to 
obtain previous consent. The overmas¬ 
tering spirit of moral and material ad¬ 
vancement, actuating the progressive 
nations of the globe, has found its justi¬ 
fication for aggressions in the ultimate 
enlightenment and betterment of those 
whom it has assumed to dominate. 
Among savage and barbarous tribes and 
peoples occupying, as they once did, a 
large part of the earth’s inhabitable sur¬ 
face, previous consent was unasked, and 
was unattainable by the invading forces 
of civilized man. The testimony of his¬ 
tory is that where a higher civilization 
has supplanted a lower civilization it has 
resulted in the ultimate improvement of 
mankind. If the means have not always 













20 


Territorial Expansion 


been merciful, if the motives have at times 
been sordid and mercenary, the end has re¬ 
dounded to the glory of man^s aspirations 
for moral and intellectual advancement. 
If the record has been at times that of one 
species of barbarism arrayed against an¬ 
other, the fittest has survived and the 
world has taken a step forward if but fal- 
teringly. They who would dispute the 
fact or condemn the means because vio¬ 
lative of the principle of consent would 
relegate the inhabitants of the globe to a 
condition of irretrievable moral and 
material chaos. There has ever been, and 
there will ever continue to be, an irrec¬ 
oncilable conflict between civilization and 
barbarism, between Christianity and hea¬ 
thenism, between enlightenment and igno¬ 
rance, between material progress and 
material sloth and inertia. The world is 
to be finally conquered and subdued by a 
higher civilization; and barbarism, heath¬ 
enism, ignorance and sloth must stand 
aside in its onward march or be extirpated 
by it. 

But let us find out the true meaning of 
the protest of our fathers as stated in the 
great Declaration of Freedom. They were 
then a part of the British Government; 
they had settled in America under its pro¬ 
tection and subject to its guaranties. 
Their rights had been grossly trampled 
upon or denied them by the government 
whose sovereignty they cheerfully ac¬ 
knowledged; they protested as citizens 
and subjects against usurpations and bur¬ 
dens which the government had no right 
to impose without their consent as intelli¬ 
gent and loyal subjects of that govern¬ 
ment. In accordance with the precedents 
of history, however, their ancestors had 
taken possession of the eastern portion of 
the continent without the consent of the 
native occupants and rightful owners of 
the soil; they had erected local govern¬ 
ments in disregard of the native popula¬ 
tion, and they laid the foundation of this 
Republic in flagrant disregard of the prin¬ 
ciple of consent to which they appealed in 
the Declaration; they and their descend¬ 
ants have, in violation of that principle, 
practically exterminated an entire conti¬ 
nent of native tribes and races; and 
to-day, after five hundred years, there ex¬ 
ists alone in the Indian Territory any 
recognition of the primitive rights of the 


original occupants to be consulted as to 
their form of government, or of the truth 
that the just powers of government are 
derived from the consent of the governed. 
Let us come a little more closely to the 
point. For several centuries the inhabit¬ 
ants of the Philippines have been recog¬ 
nized by all nations as subjects of the 
Government of Spain. They had griev¬ 
ances against Spain, not against us, simi¬ 
lar to those so eloquently recounted in 
our Declaration. Had these people pos¬ 
sessed in themselves the elements of self- 
government and the seeds of an enlight¬ 
ened nation, and had addressed a protest 
to Spain, as the fathers of our Republic 
did to England, their petition would have 
found sympathetic response through¬ 
out the world. But this was not the situ¬ 
ation presented upon our occupation _as 
the result of a war unsought by us. The 
yoke of oppression was suddenly removed, 
but there was no organized government 
and no intelligent source of power for us 
to consult, or which was capable of giving 
consent to our exercise of governmental 
control had we sought consent. It 
is idle to talk about the just powers of 
government being derived from the con¬ 
sent of the governed under the conditions 
existing in the Philippines upon their ces¬ 
sion to the United States by Spain. Be¬ 
fore it was possible even to make provision 
for the common safety, and before any¬ 
thing could be known concerning the form 
of government that was to be instituted 
for these untutored and unenlightened 
people, they broke into rebellion against 
their liberators and turned the day of 
their deliverance into hideous night of 
rapine and war. The maxim of the Dec¬ 
laration presupposes a people capable of 
giving consent; it presupposes a govern¬ 
ment seeking to oppress its subjects by a 
system of unjust laws, in the framing of 
which the subjects have had no part and 
which have been enacted against their re¬ 
peated protests. The time has not yet 
arrived when the principle of consent can 
find application in the Philippines. It 
will come when, as the rightful successor 
of Spain, we shall have instituted and put 
in force some form of government for 
these unfortunate people. If, when this 
time comes, they can truthfully present 
such an indictment against us" and our 


Territorial Expansion 21 


laws, as our fathers did against England 
in 1776, I have no doubt their independ¬ 
ence will as surely follow as did ours after 
the memorable struggle of the Revolution; 
and it ought to follow. We began the an¬ 
nexation of territory in 1803, without the 
consent of the people annexed, and the an¬ 
nals of our expansion thus far contain no 
protest, and in every instance the govern¬ 
ment we have offered our adopted citizens 
has met with their approval. In every in¬ 
stance we have had a subsequent ratifica¬ 
tion, and this is the equivalent of previous 
consent. I cannot doubt that when the 
people of the Philippines have reached a 
point in their intellectual development 
sufficiently advanced to discern what are 
the “just powers of government,” they 
will have no hesitancy in expressing their 
“ consent ” to the system we shall have 
established for them. 

But the question is not one of actual 
settlement by our people and the displace¬ 
ment of the native population, as was the 
case with the Indians on this continent. I 
do not claim that the tropics ever will be 
or should be peopled exclusively by the 
Anglo-Saxon. Mr. Benjamin Kidd, in his 
book entitled, “ The Control of the Trop¬ 
ics,” has put the problem in a few words. 
He says:— 

It would seem that the solution which must 
develop itself under pressure of circum¬ 
stances in the future is, that ttn European 
races will gradually come to realize that the 
tropics must be administered from the tem¬ 
perate regions; there is no insurmountable 
difficulty in the task. Even now all that is 
required to insure success is a clearly defined 
conception of moral necessity. This, it 
would seem, must come under the conditions 
referred to, when the energetic races of the 
world, having completed the colonization of 
the temperate regions, are met with the 
spectacle of the resources of the richest 
regions of the earth still running largely to 
waste under inefficient management. 

It seems to me that our obvious interest 
and the higher demands of humanity put 
upon us by the war with Spain, leave us no 
escape from entering now upon the work 
of doing our part and reaping our share 
of the rewards that are to follow in the 
control of tropical countries by the domi¬ 
nant Northern races. 

And this leads me to call attention 
briefly to the relations these tropical coun¬ 
tries bear to the commerce of the world. 


It is especially true of our own country, 
that we have heretofore been engaged, al¬ 
most exclusively, in developing our own 
industrial resources. While looking abroad 
for markets for our products and purchas¬ 
ing largely from other countries, we have 
not stopped to study or analyze these trop¬ 
ical foreign markets or to determine their 
relation and value to our own or to other 
countries. We have been seeking Euro¬ 
pean markets almost exclusively. 

I have endeavored to give some adequate 
idea of the importance of China to us as 
a commercial country in the article already 
referred to, in the September Overland. 
Mr. Benjamin Kidd has portrayed the im¬ 
portance of the tropics to commerce in the 
graphic pages of the book to which I have 
referred and his statistics will not be dis¬ 
puted. lie calls attention to the salient 
fact that the northern or temperate-zone 
countries have found the products of the 
tropics indispensable to their life, and that 
they are mostly non-competing articles; 
and conversely the products of the temper¬ 
ate-zone are indispensable to and generally 
impossible of production in the tropics. 
We have here then a most advantageous 
field for commercial union and inter¬ 
change. In the article of raw cotton, of 
which the British formerly obtained their 
chief supply from the East and West In¬ 
dies, the tropics have been forced to yield 
the market to the United States, the 
greatest cotton-producer on the globe. 

The principal articles consumed but not 
produced in the temperate zone are coffee, 
tea, india-rubber, cocoa, and its products, 
drugs and dye-stuffs, gum, palm oils, and 
many ornamental hardwoods. I omit to¬ 
bacco and sugar, of which we must for a 
long time be importers from the tropics, 
notwithstanding the cane and beet sugar 
and tobacco we produce. I cannot stop to 
give the imports in detail. 

Mr. Kidd states that the combined trade 
of the English-speaking countries with the 
tropics amounts to forty-four per cent, of 
their total trade with all the rest of the 
world. The United States buys from the 
region embraced between latitude thirty 
degrees north and south of the equator, 
$250,000,000 in value or over one third of 
our entire imports. Our export trade of 
over a billion dollars is with the tropics 
but $96,000,000. While the balance of 


22 


Territorial Expansion 


trade is elsewhere largely in our favor, 
we have overlooked the fact that this bal¬ 
ance is cut down over $150,000,000 by 
neglect of a region where the British have 
an export trade of $360,000,000. We are 
sending large sums of money to the tropics 
in excess of our exports to those regions, 
and this money goes back to England to 
purchase the articles which we ourselves 
should supply. This is the practical busi¬ 
ness situation which I am persuaded will 
rapidly improve, now that our flag, as 
representing our sovereignty, is perma¬ 
nently raised in the tropics. 

It is difficult to realize, but such is the 
fact, that the trade of the English speaking 
world with these countries equals thirty- 
eight per cent, of its total trade with all 
the rest of the world, if we exclude its 
trade within its own borders; and by the 
same process of calculation, it reaches six¬ 
ty-five per cent, of the total trade of the 


United States with the rest of the world. 
The lesson of. this situation points to some 
new and closer relation on our part with 
these wealth-producing regions upon 
which our increasing wants must more and 
more depend. And it is the prodigious im¬ 
portance to us of this rapidly expanding 
trade that gives such significance to our 
foothold in the Orient. 

I do not underestimate the seriousness 
of the difficulties surrounding the task up¬ 
on which we have entered. I know that it 
will draw heavily upon our resources of 
patriotism, wisdom, and statesmanship. 
My only fear for the outcome is that the 
jealousies and ambitions and intrigues of 
party politics will obscure the truth and 
mislead the judgment. There can be no 
failure if we continue to be guided by an 
exalted love for our country and by our 
best conceptions of the highest welfare of 
our people and our Government. 













































































































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